AstraZeneca Buys Amgen Facility in Colorado

By Pharma News - DCAT Publisher

September 11, 2015

AstraZeneca has purchased a biologics bulk manufacturing facility from Amgen in Boulder, Colorado. AstraZeneca plans to start staffing the facility immediately to support refurbishment and infrastructure improvements. Once complete, the site is expected to be operational and licensed for commercial production by late 2017, providing for additional capacity within the company's biologics operations.

The facility will eventually double the biologics manufacturing capacity in the US. Currently biologics make up 50% of the company's pipeline with more than 120 ongoing programs, including over 30 in clinical development. In the longer- term, this site could create up to 400 highly skilled jobs, subject to relevant approvals by the local authorities.

The new facility in Boulder adds to the expansion of AstraZeneca's biologics manufacturing capabilities, following the planned biologics manufacturing investment in Sweden, announced in May 2015, and the expansion in Frederick, Maryland,announced in November 2014.

In May 2015, AstraZeneca announced plans to invest approximately $285 million in a new facility in SÃ¶dertÃ¤lje, Sweden, focused on filling and packaging protein therapeutics. That new facility will supply medicines for clinical trial programs of AstraZeneca and MedImmune, the company's global biologics research and development arm, from the end of 2018, and will deliver finished products for commercial use once fully operational by 2019. The Sodertalje site is currently home to AstraZeneca's largest global tablets and capsules manufacturing facility and is also a launch platform site for the company, with specialist capabilities on-site that allow large-scale production of new medicines. In November 2014, AstraZeneca's announced that it is investing more than $200 million in the company's large-scale cell-culture production facility in Frederick, Maryland. The expansion is expected to be complete in mid-2017 and will add approximately 40,000 additional square feet of manufacturing, laboratory, and administrative space.